User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sat Sep 30, 2017 3:00 pm

Back in July, 2017, I picked up my first Amiga 1000. It was in pretty fine shape although it had some yellowing on the right side of its case and the keyboard was super nasty. It's mouse was also mostly useless as its y-axis didn't work. And its fan would make the occasional soft "clunk" sound, which informed me that the bearings were in the early stages of being worn out.

I took care of the keyboard thoroughly and cleaned out the case. Other than killing several dust bunnies, mechanically speaking the machine has proven to be very sound.
a1000.jpg
My original Amiga 1000 when I first got it in July, 2017, before giving it a deep clean. You can't tell in this picture, but the right side of the machine is yellowed as are parts of the top front edges.

Last week I picked up a second Amiga 1000 off of Craigslist in the Washington state area an hour south of Seattle. It was known that this Amiga would not boot up. From the description it sounded like the on-board RAM had gone bad (which is soldered on and a total pain to replace). But the machine looked pretty decent in the pictures. And, it came with a 1080 Amiga monitor, a real-time clock (status unknown), keyboard, mouse, 1010 external drive and some books and software. All-in-all, quite a haul. The caveat being I had no idea if any of it worked.

After meeting the owner in a Starbucks parking lot and seeing the hardware, my heart skipped a beat as the 1000's case looked absolutely pristine - like, it had never seen the light of day!

After getting everything home I turned on the power. The machine started flashing a green screen repeatedly as I expected it to. That night I took the machine completely apart and in a total whim swapped out the CIA chips. I'd seen a video where this actually fixed a green screen once and hoped there might be a chance it would fix mine. No such luck, unfortunately. The on-board RAM really is bad.

So, I decided to move my working machine's motherboard over to the pretty 1000's case. I started pulling the new case off and, to my astonishment, the new motherboard looked like it had been stored in a vacuum. I couldn't believe that the RAM was bad as the machine looked literally brand new. Even the floppy drive practically glimmered in the light.

After disassembling both, I moved the working motherboard over and buttoned everything back up again. I flicked on the switch and ... I noticed the new machine's fan was clunking even worst than my daily driver had been! Oh man what a bummer that was. But then the Kickstart screen flicked onto my new 1080's monitor, and I breathed a sigh of relief. That's when I noticed that the new 1080 monitor (which also looked new and has not a single scratch) was displaying some mild ghosting on high-contrast screens like the Kickstart. Another bummer. Oh well.

I grabbed my Kickstart disk and... that's when I realized that the new looking drive had gummed up internals! I could barely eject the disk after I put it in the drive (it did read the disk at least).

At this stage I unbuttoned the machine all over again and removed both the disk drive and power supply. Luckily, before ever buying the Craigslist haul I had purchased a refurbished power supply off Ebay. I had hoped to save it, but ultimately wound up putting it in the new case. I then replaced the gummy disk drive with the one from my daily driver. So now the yellowed case was in pieces and in a crate, along with the dead motherboard, gummy drive and two power supplies with aging fans.

I buttoned the new machine up again and flicked on the power switch once more. The new fan purred like a kitten. I put in my Kickstarter disk and it snapped into position perfectly, as I knew it would. Excited, I loaded my terminal software to tell some of my online friends on my favorite BBS about my long day and success story.

I pressed Return on my new, sparkling keyboard and... the Return key stayed glued to the keyboard ad never came back up again! Was my new machine fresh from a glue factory?! What a drag. It looks brand new, but I need to pull it apart and give it a deep clean, too. After shutting down, I plugged in my old (clean and near-pristine) keyboard in and finally went to Particles BBS.

It's worth noting that the new L-connectored mouse is perfect. :)

I had to transplant a lot more things than I originally planned, but I can say with confidence that I'm now the happy owner of a gorgeous Amiga 1000 with very solid guts that should last many years, knock on wood. And if something does go wonky, I've got a good set of backups for several systems.
a1000-completed.jpg
The new Amiga with several components transplanted over to create a very complete and attractive package. All of the plastic looks new and everything works perfectly.


User avatar
Bulletdust

Posted Sat Sep 30, 2017 3:29 pm

Nice setup!

I wish I could get a WiFi232 for my A1200, but sadly they're just pure unobtanium and the Wimodem for my C64 recently died so I haven't been able to access Particles BBS for quite some time - Although I do have another unit arriving in the mail next week.

In the mean time, I repaired my 1084S and made a proper chroma and Luma lead for it and the resulting image quality craps all over the dodgy LCD I was using via composite. The usual issue with the 1084S, the HOT output transistor failed killing the flyback transformer, replaced both and now it's better than new!

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User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sat Sep 30, 2017 3:56 pm

Awesome pics - thanks for sharing, Bulletdust!

You're a rare breed; you actually know how to repair CRTs? Man.. I wish I had those skills. I'd love to refurbish mine (especially the 1080 that has some minor ghosting issues).

OK here's a question for you - completely unrelated, but you might know. I acquired a weird real-time clock for my Amiga 1000. It plugs into my 2nd mouse port, which is actually a bit of a problem as it's too wide to be used if the expansion port has anything plugged into it (which mine does). Regardless, I'd like to get it to work.

Interestingly, the manufacturer used a lithium coin battery. Sweet! Unfortunately, they soldered the coin battery to the metal clips that hold it in! So, as a result, you can't remove the coin battery. I've no idea how to remove this thing without touching a soldering iron to the battery, which feels like a bad idea.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sat Sep 30, 2017 4:08 pm

Well I got half of it off just prying with a small screwdriver. Fingers crossed... I'm going in.
Attachments
IMG_2001.jpg
Stupid solder tabs.


User avatar
Bulletdust

Posted Sat Sep 30, 2017 4:22 pm

How is that battery attached on the other side (- end)? It must be soldered to the board?

If so, you've released the contact at the top, grab a soldering iron and carefully heat the connection while pulling on the coin battery on the other side of the board and with little effort it should just pop off.

Th older hardware is easier to repair as it generally uses leaded solder as opposed to lead free solder, so the solder joints themselves have a far lower melting point.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sun Oct 01, 2017 9:46 am

It was soldered on both sides. I was able to eventually work it loose. I hope to put a new battery into this thing in the next 1-2 weeks and see if it still works.

For the Amiga posted above, last night I replaced all of the keycaps from the pristine machine to the daily's mechanicals, and swapped the cover, too.

So now the machine is complete. Museum quality. <3

User avatar
LambdaCalculus
New Jersey, USA

Posted Tue Oct 03, 2017 4:27 pm

We need a new picture of the sisters together now to see this new pristine Amiga 1000! :D

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Tue Oct 03, 2017 5:55 pm

Ha! I'll have to do it in less-than-dungeon lighting for you to really appreciate the difference. But oh man - I'm just about done from a hardware perspective for the next 20 years. There's only a couple of very minor tid-bits I'd like to eventually find and get working.

-) An external HD for the 1000
-) A working real-time clock for the 1000 (which I may be close to solving)

That's really about it. My L-connector mouse issue is now 100% perfect as is the keyboard. I'm very happy with my gear.

A tiny piece of me wouldn't mind picking up a working Okimate-20 or something similar, but I'm in no rush.





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